Researcher and media artist, USED project in collaboration with m-cult and HIIT. Ph.D in progress with Media Studies, University of Turku.
Research topic
Interdisciplinary Trouble: Situated User Experience in New Media
Research abstract
My research looks at the construction of “the user” and “interactivity” both historically and through more resent research and applied practices. The main title "Interdisciplinary trouble" refers to questioning the foundations of interdisciplinarity in new media theory and practice while it also considers the clashes between concepts central to my study, "the user", "interactivity" and "experience" to be very productive as one crosses boundaries of disciplines. The title also refers to Judith Butler´s Gender Trouble, suggesting that politics of identity are central to the understanding of new media experience as a culturally situated phenomenon rooted in the every day life practices.
In my case studies I demonstrate how media applications and art works construct active subject positions, and how the works are experienced in a culturally situated context. A central part of the research looks at the ways in which the computer user historically was framed as a subject in command and as a part of a system, particularly in cybernetics, and how this influence has largely maintained its position in computer engineering and human-computer interface design. I also argue that media arts practice forms a bridge between computer engineering, hci and the cultural and media studies readings of subjectivity in relation to new media use. In the case studies I demonstrate how "the art of interfacing" is not only about the human-computer relationship, but involves wider questions of interaction with social and interpretative networks, user cultures.
In the applied project, working title Mobile Sonicity, I will explore the conditions of urban media experience that looks at mobile technology in its ability to allow synchronicity through telephony: the experience of being in motion and under the influence of remote voice/sound transmission & communication. The project involves experiments in using combinations of voice and sound through the mobile device, or interfacing between a mobile device user and a public sonic interface. The project explores how individuals may construct their own "mobile sonic urban representations of self" and thus turn the mobile interface into a more expressive medium, and how the urban use of a networked media is culturally specific and situated. The applied part of the project involves research collaboration with Sarai/CSDS, Delhi.
Short bio
Tapio Mäkelä is a researcher and media artist as well as an organiser of several events and collaborative projects. Recently he was the programme chair of ISEA2004, the 12th International Symposium of Electronic Art. Currently he is a reseacher in USED project with m-cult and HIIT, and working on a doctorate with Media Studies departement, University of Turku, Finland. Over the last decade, Mäkelä has presented papers at several international forums and been a visiting lecturer and artist in residence. In the years 1994-1997 Mäkelä was director of artist association Muu, where he established a medialab for artists, the Muu Media Base. Mäkelä has also realized several media art projects and shown at key international media art festivals. He has also been involved in Finnish open source and IT development as well as the Helsinki electronic music scene. He has also contributed to media and arts policy research. He recently chaired an expert meeting on media arts and culture policy co-organised with m-cult, IFACCA and Finnish Arts Council.
Links
ISEA2004: http://www.isea2004.net
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